Director of the National Archives of Armenia invited Turkish historians to look at history archives

At the center of the Armenian capital of Yerevan, 30 meters below Abovyan Street, lies a subterranean historical archive covering an immense 7,000 square meters.

The underground repository is one of three different locations, including the National Archives building, holding archival documents related to the country.

The documents most valuable to Armenians are, without a doubt, those that shed light on the painful events of 1915, when up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed shortly after World War I under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. Yerevan insists the events constituted genocide, but Turkey fiercely rejects the label, saying civil strife caused many deaths on both sides.

In a rare interview with a Turkish newspaper, Dr. Amatuni Virabian, the director of the National Archives of Armenia, invited Turkish historians to carry out research in the archives. “We are ready to help them in whatever way we can,” Virabian told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review.

“The documents in Turkey’s national archives are all in the Ottoman language,” Virabian said. “However, ours are in Armenian, as well as in Russian, English, German and French. This makes things easier for researchers.”

The director also noted that 12,000 documents in the archives have been transferred to the digital medium.

Reflecting on Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s suggestion that a committee of Turkish and Armenian historians could be formed to seek out the truth about the 1915 events, Virabian said he believes this might happen very soon.

“But this should not be done under the title of a committee. And the first attempt should not come from officials,” he said. “We must move gradually.”

Virabian added that he was in touch with associate professor Yusuf Sarınay from Turkey’s General Directorate of State Archives.

Responding to a question on why the Armenian archives in the U.S. city of Boston and in Jerusalem had not been opened yet, Virabian said the Boston archive belongs to Dashnaks and the documents there are currently being catalogued. “The archive at the Jerusalem Patriarchate is kept closed for some stupid reason based on enmity between some individuals,” he said.


/Hurriyet Daily News/